mikejuk writes: The Raspberry Pi might be a cheap and reasonably powerful but it has a tough learning curve due to the Linux OS it uses. Adafruit, better known for their hardware, are working on a WebIDE which you can use to program the Pi without having to set things up. You write the code in a browser and run it on the Pi using a web server hosted by the Pi. It sounds crazy but if it can make the Pi more approachable then perhaps it could turn out to be an educational powerhouse.

When you aim is to learn to program - in Python say - having to configure any OS is not a desirable first step.
It isn't Linux is difficult, it's just not the object of the exercise and if you can avoid it then so much the better.